


Intermediate Coping Techniques

by biggod



Series: Lessons In Adjustment [3]
Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Chronic Illness, Disability, Established Relationship, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Married Couple, Mentions of surgery, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:14:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27790582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biggod/pseuds/biggod
Summary: On the importance of support, understanding, and community.Final piece of the Lessons trilogy.
Relationships: Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Series: Lessons In Adjustment [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1967347
Comments: 11
Kudos: 77





	Intermediate Coping Techniques

**Author's Note:**

> trauma anniversaries are hard, and 2020 has been harder. this is a love letter to my own support system. i would do anything for my friends. this one's for you, ass eating server.
> 
> never-ending thanks to grace and michelle for the betas!!! <3
> 
> "I've never told anyone that story, Britta. I was dead for three minutes. Three whole minutes, they thought I was gone."  
> -Shirley Bennett, s4e6 "Advanced Documentary Filmmaking"

Abed lies on his back in the garden.

"I don't know how to process arcs that never end," he says.

\---

Shirley, 9:52am

_I'm coming to visit next week. Won't take no._

Things were better. They’ve been moving lighter since the spring, getting their balance back piece by piece - but now it's August again. The heat brings with it a slow, oppressive heaviness that settles into their bones, makes it harder to get out of bed, makes their voices rough with disuse and eyes red and burning. At least, they pretend it's the heat that does it for as long as they can.

"Our bodies remember," Sophie tells him in a session. "This time of year might be harder. Anniversaries are often retraumatizing to some level."

He reads the notification, hovers his thumb over it for a moment, locks his phone. He puts it in his pocket for ten minutes, takes it out suddenly and taps the message before he can think about it. He has to trick himself into small tasks lately.

_We’ll pick you up at LAX. When’s your flight?_

\---

Annie hasn’t been over much lately.

They noticed it in the early summer, when a busy couple of days at work turned to weeks. She’s always too tired, too busy, too stressed. At first it’s not cause for alarm - they miss her, but she tends to sort through these periods on her own, or ask for help when she needs it. Besides, she has a girlfriend now, and they assume that’s taking up more of her Troy and Abed time.

That is, until they spot her in the grocery store, buying wine in sweats. Annie doesn’t leave her apartment in what she calls “pajamas lite”.

They start paying more attention then, charting her excuses and keeping a close eye on her when she does come around. Her visits drop gradually from nearly every day to roughly once weekly; when she’s there, she’s all surface, hesitant to engage too closely.

“Hey, Annie,” Troy says, pacing in the hall, phone pressed to his ear. “We just wanted to see if y--”

He goes quiet, and Abed sighs.

“Yeah. No, you should definitely get some rest-- no, it’s okay. I’ll see you soon though?”

Another pause.

“...yeah, okay. Yeah! No problem. Text us if you need anything at a-- okay. Love you. Bye, Annie.”

Troy comes back into the living room and flops down into his recliner next to Abed’s.

“She won’t talk to me, dude. Brick wall.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“It’s gonna be okay, right?” Troy rolls his head against the headrest to look at Abed. Abed isn’t sure what to say - any response, good or bad, feels like dishonesty.

\---

Abed hasn’t told his mother that he’s sick. She doesn’t know about the surgery, or how close he came to not making it there. He never had it in himself to call her after diagnosis; it wasn’t real if she didn’t know, he told himself, the same way her leaving never felt official until he got a Christmas card instead of a knock on the door.

They built a ship-in-a-bottle together once, when he was in elementary school. The project was deemed “too advanced for his age group” and wasn’t graded, but he remembers her hands guiding his with the tweezers and the rare pride in her eyes when they corked the bottle and placed it on display. He gave it to her after he turned in his remedial assignment - a magazine collage that had bored him to tears - and she’d kissed his head and set the bottle on her desk. She left it behind when she left Abed and his father behind; he hasn’t seen it in years.

When things got dire, and surgery was rushed forward, it felt too late to call her with the news. He isn’t sure if his father has ever reached out to her about it, but he doubts it; Abed took over correspondence about his own well-being as soon as he was old enough, given the effect it had on Gubi to talk to her.

If she _is_ aware, she’s never said anything. Abed puts his hopes back inside the bottle, prays she doesn’t know, and places the bottle carefully on a shelf.

\---

_One new voice message. Beep._

“Hey, Abed, it’s me again,” his agent and publicist says. She’s trying to sound chipper, but he can hear the repressed sigh in the tightness of her voice. “Listen, I know you’re dealing with a lot, and I’m not going to pressure you for a script, I promise. I know that’s why you’re dodging my calls.”

He winces internally. He may have been a little harsh the last time she asked if he was working on anything; the idea of writing has been overwhelming to say the least. Putting his creative mind back in order has been the last step in recovery, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t putting off the daunting task.

“With that said…” She pauses, and he can tell she’s bracing. It makes him wary. “I know you don’t want details of your, uh... _illness_ getting out, and it’s been a bitch to keep quiet - not to mention expensive - but right now the only people chasing this are the tabloids. The problem is, you haven’t been seen in public in close to two years. It would be really good for people to see you looking healthy and doing things other than grocery shopping with your husband. I--”

_Beep. Message deleted._

\---

There’s a weight that slows his limbs in every movement he makes, as though he’s wading through water with each step. Everything feels slow and cold, even as the summer sun beats down, even when sweat beads on the back of his neck and his throat is dry and hoarse. He can’t seem to get warm, no matter what he does. He can’t seem to move right. It’s easiest, on these days, to lie still. It isn’t rest, but it’s all he can handle.

There are other times when the thought of sitting solitary is the worst thing he can imagine, when his brain locks into fight or flight and he has nowhere to go, nothing to do. He doesn’t know where to put his hands. His mind batters him both with memory and with possibility, and it paralyzes him all as it tells him nowhere and no one is safe.

Above all else, he is tired. Exhaustion sits heavy in him, a stone in his stomach, a stumble in his words, a tremor in his hands. He can’t seem to stop shaking.

Peace doesn’t come with sleep - he slips away and loses what little control he has over his world. Sometimes they’re memories relived, and those times are bad; sometimes they’re things he recalls being afraid of, or new nightmares he hadn’t even _thought_ to be afraid of, and those times are worse.

He starts staying awake as long as he can. The cure becomes worse than the disease.

\---

_She’s parking the car. It’s all she can focus on. It’s her job, the only thing her energy and time needs to go to right now. She’s circling the parking lot. She’s parking the car._

_Eventually, though, the car is parked, and she’s stuck behind the wheel, and the terror catches up. She’s going to have to go inside the hospital, to find Troy and hold him together. Her hands feel cold where they were touching Abed’s face. There’s blood on her sleeve._

_“Okay, Annie,” she says, and her voice comes out raw and hoarse in a way she hasn’t heard it since her pre-rehab days. “Prioritize. You have twenty seconds.”_

_She breathes in deep, clutches the steering wheel, and screams. Her whole body shakes with it, tears spilling over onto her cheeks like they were driven out by the force of it. When she lets go of the wheel, the imprint of it is dug into her palms from the pressure; she ignores the dull pain of it and covers her face, allowing herself to cry for what’s almost definitely longer than twenty seconds. Oh, well, she thinks, it’s not a perfect system._

_Still, when her brain has too-slowly counted to twenty, she wipes her eyes, takes a breath, stretches her fingers out calmly on the wheel. The next task is to find Troy. There will be another after that, and so on. She unsteadily grabs her phone, the keys, Abed’s emergency papers. She climbs out of the car. Find Troy. Find Troy. Find Troy._

_At first he is overwhelmed, all hyperventilation and trembling. Then he is silent, tired, teary-eyed as they wait for what may be hours. Then they’re called into a room, and Abed wakes with a shriek, and Troy isn’t crying anymore. She’s never been so afraid for him._

_When the doctor comes to explain, she takes him into the hallway to speak with him privately. Troy is shut off completely, eyes closed, sitting with his forehead pressed against the edge of Abed’s mattress._

_She memorizes the doctor’s every word, and then she tells him she’ll explain it to Troy on her own. If she keeps certain details to herself, it’s better - Troy doesn’t need the words “third-attempt resuscitation” running frantic circles in his conscience._

_Later, she tries to tell Abed. He already seems to know._

\---

“We’re gonna be late,” Abed observes, and doesn’t move.

Troy hums in agreement behind him, the sound coming out wobbly and rough. His arm is slung across Abed’s waist, their feet intertwined; there’s too much distance between them to really call it spooning, but it’s all Abed can handle at the moment. Troy’s touch tethers him to his body, and little else: his skin is buzzing with discomfort, radiating from the scars on his back, in the crook of his arm - surgery and dialysis, respectively - and crawling inside his ribcage.

He wants to claw his way out of his body, but he can’t, so he lies still and stares at the wall and thinks about how late they’re going to be. He flexes his hand, digs his fingers into the sheets.

His t-shirt rode up in the night, exposing his back to the air. He can’t see Troy’s face, but he can feel his eyes on the scar.

\---

Shirley arrives on the nineteenth, citing the need for a break from her booming business. She comes towards them both with open arms, and despite being short and outnumbered she sweeps them both into a tight hug. When she pulls away, she _tsks_ at Abed’s thin frame and the bags under Troy’s eyes.

Annie brings dinner over in the evening, to their surprise, bags of takeout in one hand and her overnight duffel in the other. Tenting her building for termites, she lies. They’re happy she’s there, so they don’t argue.

Shirley makes them breakfast in the morning, before they’re awake enough to protest. She looms over them, smiling threateningly until they’ve eaten all they can. Troy makes it most of the way; Abed manages half, but forces a few extra bites when it’s made clear that everyone else at the table is watching him closely. It’s a valiant effort, but Shirley still hums disapprovingly.

\---

Abed’s body doesn’t work right the whole day, joints slipping and cracking with what feels like every step. Shirley wants them to bake with her, so he ends up seated at the kitchen table, mixing flour and sugar and butter together in shallow movements and trying to conceal how close his shoulder is to dislocating entirely. His head feels pressurized and his lungs are heavy, like he’s sitting at the bottom of the ocean.

She hums while she bustles between the refrigerator and the stove, though, and her praise lights Troy’s face up in half a dozen subtle ways, so Abed sits at the table, stirs, and considers it a fair trade.

\---

Troy and Abed shuffle off to bed early, Abed leaning harder on Troy than he likely wants to. They’ve given him a cane for difficult days, but he won’t even look at it; Annie thinks he’ll warm up to it eventually, but it may take a few years. She watches his carefully neutral expression, spots the tension in his hands and his subtly clenched jaw, scrutinizes the way he favors his left side the whole way down the hall and out of sight.

“Alright,” Shirley says, the moment they’re out of sight. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Excuse me?” she replies, instantly defensive.

Shirley looks pointedly at the throw blanket Annie has pulled from the arm of the couch onto her lap, where it’s currently twisted between her white-knuckled hands. She gasps and lets it go, then huffs and crosses her arms.

Shirley waits a moment to see if Annie will offer a response, then sighs.

“Troy mentioned you haven’t been around,” she presses.

“I’ve been busy,” Annie says evasively, avoiding eye contact.

“Too busy for the people you moved across the country to be around.” Shirley narrows her eyes. “You’re standin’ by that as an excuse.”

“What do you want me to say?” Annie is growing distressed. Shirley waits patiently until she gives in.

“I haven’t been…” she waves her hands in the air, eyes shimmering, voice wobbling. “...dealing well, with all of it. They’re going through enough, and I didn’t want to make them deal with it, or make it about _myself,_ so…”

“‘All of it’?” Shirley asks, her demeanor softer, more comforting.

“I was here,” Annie answers. “When he was sick, I was here, taking care of them both. You know that. I was here when Abed, I…”

Shirley passes her the tissue box from the coffee table. Annie dabs at her eyes and sniffs.

“They didn’t ask me to be,” she says quietly instead. “I wanted to. I’m glad I was there when it happened last year, Troy was a wreck.”

“But they started getting better and you ran out of things you could fix, is that it? And now that they need help again, you’re hoping it’ll give you somewhere to put all that you’re feeling?”

Annie looks at Shirley in mild surprise.

“I’ve been there, baby,” she says. “One thing you need to understand, this is not about them. You’ve got a responsibility to take care of yourself if you want to be there for anyone else, and that means asking for help when you need it. That’s the opposite of selfish, do you hear me?”

Annie nods, hesitantly at first, reaching out to take Shirley’s hand.

“You’re a part of the family. Your hard times matter just as much as theirs.”

“You’re right,” Annie says, nearly smiling as she dries her cheek. “Britta would probably say something about how we’re conditioned to prioritize man pain.”

“She might be right, but don’t tell her,” Shirley mutters. Annie laughs. A few comfortable moments slip by as Annie composes herself.

“I didn’t just come for them, you know,” Shirley adds. “The boys want to help you, but they’re not the only ones you’ve got to call.”

_“Aww,”_ Annie says, and all but throws herself into a hug.

\---

Troy wakes with a start, feeling like a widower.

He doesn’t tell Abed what he dreamt about; all he has to do is roll over and touch Abed’s arm, and he wakes from his own fitful rest, squints tiredly at Troy’s face, and wraps his arms around his husband as tightly as his aching body can manage. Troy snakes his hands around Abed’s waist in return.

It’s too hot to be exactly comfortable, but they’re still intertwined when Troy finally breathes again and dozes off, as the sky is lightening outside the window.

\---

Sophie warned Abed that retraumatization can bring physical symptoms with it, and he’s spent days gearing up for a flare. He didn’t expect the phantom pains, though, spreading out from the scar, building tension in his neck and shoulders and weighing down his head. He’s fending off panic attacks at what feels like every turn, terrified that the pains aren’t just memories, that every twinge in his spine is all the warning he’ll get before his body takes over and seizes without him present in it.

When Annie and Shirley arrive, though, he breathes a little easier. Maybe it’s their reassuring natures, or the more familiar type of comfort he gets from watching them bicker. Maybe it’s knowing that he and Troy aren’t alone should something actually happen.

There are tradeoffs. Annie can be condescending when she thinks Abed should be taking meds earlier, drinking more water, or eating more greens. Shirley hovers over him at every mealtime like he’ll disappear if he doesn’t finish his plate; she pushes him to do more, to get out of bed, to be around people and respond to them. He’s sure these are somewhat good goals objectively, but there are moments when it’s too much, and the weight in his body makes it impossible to move, and he doesn’t know how to tell them this.

All in all, though, he sees a change. Annie is slipping back into old routines, talking, being more caring and honest bit by bit. She’s not avoiding their eyes. She leans back on him when she needs it now, which grants him no small measure of relief.

Shirley, too - sometimes she looks at him like she knows something he doesn’t expect her to, and she moves around him with an unanticipated tenderness that makes his heart ache in a hundred small, cathartic ways.

He doesn’t want to feel like a patient. They remind him of all the ways in which he is a person instead.

\---

It’s early evening on the twenty-first when the doorbell rings. Abed notices Shirley and Annie glancing at each other in a way they undoubtedly think is subtle, which is the first clue; the second is the cab driver he spots pulling away through the front window. The last piece of the puzzle is Britta herself, already grinning when he opens the door.

“Surprise!” She cheers. “In town for a conference.”

“A surprise conference?” Abed asks, stepping aside to let her in. She chuckles a touch too loudly, giving the girls a quick thumbs-up that she thinks he can’t see before she launches into hollow greetings: “Annie, I didn’t know you’d be here! Shirley, was _this_ the week you’re visiting?”

Their hugs are real enough, though. Abed hasn’t felt this close to genuinely smiling in days.

“Britta?” Troy’s voice wobbles a touch when he rounds the corner from the kitchen and spots her. Abed takes the popcorn bowl from his hands before he can even ask, and then Britta is hugging Troy like he’ll wither into nothing if she doesn’t.

Abed declines a hug for himself, claiming he’s in too much pain today for one. The truth is he doesn’t think he can stomach the comfort of it. He gives her hand a squeeze of thanks, and that seems to be enough for her.

\---

“The girls are all visiting,” he tells Sophie the next day, the twenty-second. “They came to help.”

“And? Are they helping?” she asks him. He considers.

“There are harder moments. I don’t have to pretend around Troy.”

“You do anyway, sometimes,” she reminds him gently.

“True.” Abed is fidgeting with a metal tangle; he pauses and looks at her. “Overall, though, yes. I can’t really explain it yet. It’s not that it’s easier to deal with, exactly, but... other people can cheer Troy up, and it’s not a lie.”

“That makes a lot of sense. I’m glad it’s helping.”

“Why is it easier having them here?” he asks. “It isn’t that Troy isn’t enough.”

“When two people are drowning together, they need more than each other,” she says pointedly. “They need people with a boat to come along and lift them out of the water. It’s nothing to feel bad about. External support is important, especially in times when we get stuck in our own heads.”

He nods. Somewhere in the midst of discussing emergency plans for the next day, he pauses and asks:

“Aren’t you tired of ship metaphors?”

“Write some new ones, Hollywood,” she retorts good-naturedly. Abed can’t help but laugh.

\---

They’re setting the table for dinner when there’s a knock at the end of the front hall. Jeff looks sheepish when Troy answers the door.

“Are we still bothering with excuses?” he asks, and Troy shakes his head and waves him inside.

\---

Jeff observes over dinner - the way Shirley fusses over how much they eat, Abed’s anxiety and Troy’s focus tested by Britta and Annie’s nonstop attempts at distraction - and then calls the girls to the living room. Abed clears the table; Troy is just trying to reach the laundry room, but Jeff’s placating lawyer tone around the corner gives him pause.

“--but this is not the time to push. If the normal stuff isn’t working, we need to take a step back and figure out something that will.”

“But I--”

“I know you’re trying to help, Shirley,” he says carefully. “I promise they know it too. I’m just saying the guilt factor is probably not constructive here.”

“There’s a difference between guilt-tripping and concern, Jeffrey,” she huffs.

“There is! Do you know it?” he snipes back. Annie gasps.

“Look,” he says, backpedaling. “This isn’t about us, right? What normal people need isn’t going to help us. We have to ask ourselves, what do _Troy and Abed_ need?”

The silence is long enough that Troy holds his breath, suddenly too loud to his own ears, and sneaks back towards the kitchen.

\---

Annie kisses their cheeks before they go to bed. Troy and Abed aren’t sure what’s changed between the last few weeks and now, but it’s clear something has.

“I missed you guys,” she murmurs, and squeezes Troy’s hand.

“The darkest timeline is the one where we don’t have you,” he whispers back.

\---

It’s late. It’s dark. Abed is staring, unblinking, at the stars on the ceiling. His body is vibrating uncomfortably; he can no longer deny the grief that’s settled into all of the cracks and broken parts of him, not while it’s crawling up his throat. Everything feels too much, too intense, too concentrated, in a way he doesn’t know how to handle.

Beside him, Troy turns restlessly in his sleep, mumbling incoherently to himself. Abed wants to comfort him, but he has no reassurances to give.

He doesn’t know how long he stays there before he gets up. He tells himself it’s for water, maybe some fresh air, but really he can’t bear to lie still.

When he steps into the kitchen, he realizes a moment too late that he isn’t alone. Shirley stands at the sink, touching her cross necklace and looking out the window. She turns and spots him before he can process her presence. He freezes, unsure how to backpedal, afraid she’ll chide him for being up so late.

She must see the hesitation on his face in the dim light, because she puts her hands up in a show of peace.

“Don’t worry,” she says, hushed. “I know I’ve been mother henning a bit too much. What do you need, pumpkin?”

He’s about to lie, the words _just getting a glass of water_ on his tongue, but he pauses before they come and blows out a slow, frustrated breath.

“I don’t know,” he says instead, and she looks at him somewhat sadly and nods. He isn’t sure if it’s pity, but his stomach flips uncomfortably at the possibility.

“What’s been going on with you?” he asks, desperate to divert attention from himself, from the way the surface of his skin feels like it’s writhing and twisting.

“I’m worried about you,” she admits, and then smiles ever so slightly when his face doesn’t change. “I guess that was already obvious, huh?”

“Yep.” He tries to smile back, but he doesn’t think he succeeds.

“I’ve been where you are,” she says, and sighs. “I thought that would make me good at helping you through it, thought it would… help me understand what you need, I guess. But I feel as much at a loss as I did when it was me.”

“Did you,” he starts, and that _something_ is digging its claws into his throat from the inside again, “I mean. The surgery, did it--”

“Oh, no, sweetie, that wasn’t it. Don’t worry.” She takes a step towards him, and he looks away but doesn’t run. Sophie’s voice is in his mind, repeating _remember that you’re safe, remember that they love you,_ and he’s massaging one hand with the other and focusing on the sensation until he can meet Shirley’s eyes again.

“There was an accident long before Greendale,” she says, evenly and quietly, in that voice he’s heard her use to soothe her sons. It twists something in his chest to hear it directed at him. “I had to be revived too. I know how it feels to wonder if you’re still supposed to be here.”

It was never pity, he realizes. It was understanding. His eyes grow wide and glassy.

“You know about that? Did Annie tell you?”

“No, honey,” she soothes, putting her hands up but letting him determine their distance. “The doctor had to tell me before I donated. I’ve never said anything.”

"Shirley," he says, and doesn't recognize his own voice. She catches him when his knees give.

He isn't crying, but he's shaking so hard that it scares him. She's got an arm around his waist to support his weight, and the other situated comfortingly around his neck, fingers carding through his hair. His chin rests on her shoulder and his hands come up to press against her back, hesitant. His breath hitches.

"I know, baby," she says, and he clutches at her sweater, buries his face in her shoulder. She hums to him, stroking his head, squeezing a little tighter around his ribs. 

She hugs him closer until he can barely breathe, and he clings to her ever-tighter until his head hurts but he fits inside himself again, and the buzzing under his skin dies down to a dull ache. Eventually he finds his footing again. He takes a shaky breath in and loosens his hold, knuckles stinging.

She pulls back enough to look at his face, brushing a stray tear from his jaw, stroking through his messy hair once.

“You okay?”

He nods, blinking, thoroughly exhausted.

“Go on and get some sleep, baby,” she says softly. “Nothing’s gonna happen that we aren’t here to help you with. You aren’t alone.”

Abed regards her for a moment, takes in her kind face, and it strikes him that she’s a touch unsteady herself; he reaches down and squeezes her hand.

“Thank you,” he says, and tries to express how many ways he means it. She smiles a little.

“Drink some water, pumpkin,” she says in return.

When Abed climbs back in bed, Troy’s mumblings have turned distressed. Abed pulls him close, kisses his eyelids carefully, murmurs to him quietly until Troy goes calm and still.

\---

_He doesn’t recall much from the day he woke post-op, but a few memories stay with him: Annie never leaves Troy’s side, and Troy never leaves his; Britta smiles impossibly wide and says “Hey, buddy!” when she’s allowed in the room; Jeff works his ass off to lighten the mood, and eventually Troy smiles, and that’s the very first moment Abed feels like things might turn out alright. Shirley visits him as soon as she’s allowed to walk around; he’s mostly asleep, but she takes his hand between hers and murmurs “We did it, baby,” and he thinks he remembers having a nice dream._

\---

It starts with Annie, that much isn’t a surprise.

She knocks lightly in the mid-morning, poking her face through the crack in the door. Troy lifts his head and beckons her inside; Abed’s back is to the door, but when she sits on the edge of the mattress next to him, his eyes are open and bloodshot.

“Hey guys, she says softly, quietly, reaching up to brush a stray curl from Abed’s temple. He hums.

“It might take a while to get up today,” Troy says, pulling the blanket up to his chin.

“That’s okay,” she says, sweetness masking concern. “Do you want to be left alone?”

They glance at each other and shake their heads.

“Okay.”

Annie moves to the end of the bed and then crawls up it slowly, careful not to jostle Abed too much. Troy pulls the blanket back long enough to let her inside, and she settles comfortably in the space they make for her between them.

Troy rests his head on her shoulder, while Abed drapes his arm around her waist. Annie taps out a text and then wraps her arm around Troy’s back. He dozes a bit, jumping unintentionally any time he feels himself slipping under too deep, until murmurs from Annie and Abed bring him back to awareness. He can’t make out what they’re saying, hazy as his mind is, but the slight vibrations of Annie’s collarbone where his ear is pressed are comforting.

“Annie?” Troy begins groggily, and then forgets what he was going to ask. He blinks until his eyes focus on Abed, who’s staring back at him the way he always does - intently, like whatever Troy is about to say is the most important thing that could be happening.

“Hey,” she says, reaching up to brush her fingers through his hair. “Are you okay? Do you need something?”

Troy doesn’t necessarily want to go back to sleep. He’s tired, but he’s uneasy, and he doesn’t trust himself to dream about anything he’s ready to see. His eyelids feel heavy, though, and he just wants to rest them, to lie still and quiet and conscious in the comforting dark. He shuts his eyes and shifts a little, stretching his leg, adjusting his head on Annie’s shoulder.

“Don’t leave us again, ‘kay?” he mumbles, and takes hold of her hand where it’s draped over his body.

There’s a moment of quiet, and Troy’s sure she’s looking at Abed, that they’re likely having some kind of moment. Troy is comfortable, though, so he lies where he is and lets them handle it. Eventually she squeezes his hand.

“Okay,” she says. “I won’t.”

It could be ten minutes later or thirty, but eventually there’s another knock on the door. The three of them chime “Come in!” together in a chorus ranging from sleepy to disgruntled to chipper. Britta appears in the doorway, still in pajamas, laptop in her arms.

“Hey guys,” she says, her tone excited but her volume subdued. “Netflix put Crazy Ex-Girlfriend back up and Annie and I have been wanting to rewatch. Can I keep it low?”

“Yeah,” Troy mumbles, and Abed nods, so Britta crosses the room and places the laptop centrally at Annie’s feet. Britta hits the space bar and settles against the headboard next to Troy, and he shifts a little to lean into her leg; she picks up where Annie left off, playing with his hair lightly as the episode begins to play.

Annie hums along with the songs she likes, as always; Britta comments on the trope subversion, and while Abed seems to struggle with his words today, he offers her little nods and half-smiles when he agrees and raises his eyebrow when he doesn’t, and she seems happy with the system. Eventually Troy squints at the screen with one eye, then the other, and before he knows it he’s inching his way a little higher in the bed to lean his head against Britta’s side. Her laughs feel different than Annie’s - they come from deeper in the belly, and they shake her whole frame with contagious joy. He finds himself chuckling too, now and again. He’s toying with Annie’s fingers still, and she doesn’t seem to mind.

They’re partway through their second episode when Jeff appears at the crack in the door Britta left, and he pushes the door open wide.

“You’re watching without me?” he asks in mock betrayal. His surprised act is a little transparent, but no one seems to mind, least of all Troy. Jeff squeezes in next to Britta - there’s just enough room for him on the side of the bed, but he says he’s unbalanced and wraps his arms around her waist anyway. If he ends up resting a grounding hand on Troy’s shoulder blade, he pretends it’s a coincidence.

Shirley comes last, knocking on the open door and holding high a bag of breakfast sandwiches from the deli the next street over. They cheer her name, and she giggles. She takes her spot next to Abed, and that’s when he finally shifts high enough to rest against her shoulder.

They eat slowly; it’s louder now with everyone here, but the noise doesn’t bother Troy as much. Shirley laughs heartily at all the points when Troy wants to; she draws it out of him somehow, bit by bit, as though she’s reminding him what it is to laugh and mean it. Abed gradually starts to relax too, and Troy knows the comforting familiarity of Jeff and Britta’s bickering and Shirley and Annie’s _awws_ must be setting him at ease. At some point Annie has to lean forward and increase the volume, and that’s when Troy looks around and notices that the once stiflingly quiet bedroom is teeming with joy and silliness.

There’s still something raw sitting uncomfortably in his ribcage, but he glances at Abed and sees a little more brightness in his eyes, and he knows he can breathe through it. Britta smacks Jeff’s cheek with a piece of vegan bacon, and Troy can’t help but laugh.

\---

“It’s the first week of classes at Greendale,” Abed says the next day, after Savasana. “I looked it up.”

“Okay,” Britta says, and waits for the rest.

“Well, between Jeff’s class and Shirley’s business, it’s a busy time. Also, you have clients every week.”

“And?” Her voice is light, almost amused, and she’s relaxed as she watches him.

“You’re all here,” he simply says. She pats his knee.

“Family is more important, Abed. We were all worried.” She hesitates for a moment. “And kinda selfishly, we wanted to be here anyway.”

He tilts his head.

“You can’t honestly think you and Troy were the only ones seriously affected by what happened last year.” She says it kindly, but it strikes him painfully in the gut anyway. “I had nightmares for weeks, and I think Jeff almost started drinking again.”

“I didn’t know,” he says, and looks at the grass.

“Hey, it’s not _your_ fault.” She bends lower into his field of vision and smiles. “We handled it, same as you guys did. Everyone is okay. I’m trying to tell you we care about you, that’s all.”

He nods, and breathes out.

Abed and Britta are rolling up their mats as Shirley steps into the backyard with a drink in her hand. She sits at the small table near the door.

“Sure,” Abed overhears her muttering into her glass. “Eighty damn degrees outside, but let’s go practice being bendy.”

Abed shoots her an amused glance and looks at Britta, who seems not to have heard. He’s sure she would’ve commented if she had. She straightens, dusts herself off and touches his shoulder.

“Troy and I are gonna go make Jeff watch Jim Belushi movies, wanna come?”

“Why would you do that to yourself?” Abed asks, aghast.

“Mutually assured destruction,” she shrugs. “And it makes Troy laugh.”

“Monsters,” Abed says, but touches her arm in thanks. She smiles and heads into the house.

Abed walks over to Shirley slowly, his aches lessened but lingering. He sits next to her with a sigh and rolls his neck. She’s looking at the backyard with a serenity he almost thinks he can understand.

“You and Troy did a really good job with this,” she says, gesturing to the late-season flowers and the developing blackberry bushes lining the back fence. “It’s so peaceful back here.”

“Troy did most of it,” Abed says. “I helped with the big stuff, but this was important to him.”

“We all learn something that helps,” she says. Abed looks at her, pauses, and hesitantly lays his hand palm-up on the table between them.

She stares at him in surprise for a long moment before smiling softly, clearly touched. She takes his hand and looks back at the garden.

“Andre went through all of it with me,” she says quietly. “That’s why it was so hard for me to let him go. You find someone who says forever and then you think he's proved he means it, so you don’t expect it when the other shoe drops. He shut down slowly to protect himself, but he didn’t care much about me in the process.”

Abed isn’t sure what to say. He swallows.

“Andre didn’t have a garden, though,” she continues, her voice a little brighter. “Andre left the things he cared about behind. He didn’t have a place to put the things he was feeling, and he didn’t have an Abed.”

She’s smiling at him again, squeezing his hand.

“I poured my time into church, and my boys, and eventually school. I did it to avoid what I was feeling, but I woke up one day excited for study group and realized that was what moving on felt like. It took effort, but it also took time. Put your energy somewhere, baby. It’ll pass.”

They sit in companionable quiet until the sun inches its way overhead. Abed opens the door for Shirley and kisses her cheek as she passes.

\---

Jeff and Britta leave together a couple of days later, hugging each of them tightly before they go.

“You’ll be alright,” Jeff murmurs in Abed’s ear before he pulls away.

Abed pauses, hand on Jeff’s shoulder, and regards him - the crinkles by his eyes are a little more prominent; there’s the slightest touch of gray by his temples that, once noticed, he’ll inevitably have a crisis over; and his kindness and concern lie open on the surface, unhindered by bravado or callousness.

“You’ve come a long way, Jeff,” Abed says, and Jeff looks too shocked to smile back. Abed pats his arm once and moves to hug Britta. It looks like Jeff squeezes Troy extra tight before he goes.

Britta knocks their elbows together as they walk towards their gate. They’re leaning on each other as they turn the corner and disappear.

Shirley stays a few extra days, until their sleep has started to improve and Abed’s flare has died down. Annie promises to keep a closer eye on them; only when the energy creeps back into Troy’s manner and Abed looks less pale does Shirley arrange her return flight.

“You’re taking care of each other while I’m gone,” she says, pointing to the three of them each in turn. It’s not phrased like a question, but she’s imploring beneath the threatening exterior.

“Yes ma’am,” Troy says, light but affectionate. She squints at him on her way in for a goodbye hug, and she squeezes all of them together so tightly that Abed can’t quite breathe.

\---

"I don't know how to process arcs that never end," Abed says, lying in the garden, and Troy sits back on his heels, wipes at his forehead with the back of his wrist. There’s dirt on his gloves, and a touch of it smudges just above his eyebrow. He doesn’t notice; he’s looking at Abed contemplatively.

“It’s risky to add entirely new character traits mid-run,” Abed continues. His fingers twitch as he speaks, as though they want to gesticulate but are too weary to make the effort. “An arc is meant to accomplish a goal or foster new growth, and then it’s supposed to end. Usually on TV, ‘remission’ means ‘end of plotline’, but that doesn’t apply here.”

“I think,” Troy says slowly, “That it’s okay for there to be an unsolvable problem sometimes. Plot-wise, I mean. If the characters are any good, they’ll get better at handling it.”

Abed hums, but doesn’t seem satisfied.

“Luke Skywalker lost his hand and he figured it out,” Troy adds. “For that matter, Anakin--”

“No prequel talk,” Abed interrupts, rolling his head to the side to look at Troy. “Besides, Luke got a new identical hand, so we didn’t see it affect him very much.”

“Fair,” he nods, and looks around for his trowel. Abed spots it in the grass near his head and passes it to Troy. For a few moments, there’s just the sound of metal digging into soil.

“Professor X,” Troy says, and pauses. Abed looks back at the sky, considering. “He didn’t start off in the wheelchair, but he still made it work. It didn’t keep him from being super powerful and awesome.”

“That’s true,” Abed says. It comes out quieter than he intended. He isn’t sure why. He rolls his head to look at Troy once more, and Troy stops working to prop his chin on the back of his hand and smile down at Abed.

“I know there aren’t a lot of examples for you to reference here,” Troy says. “I’m sorry.”

“Lack of representation isn’t a new feeling, Troy.”

“Maybe not,” Troy says, and he pulls off one of his gardening gloves and drops it on the ground, “But this is still a new form of it, right?”

Abed nods a little hesitantly. Troy reaches out and cups Abed’s cheek, drawing out a small smile.

“Professor X was a good one, though,” Abed murmurs.

“You know the best thing about all of this?” Troy asks, sliding his hand up to card gently through Abed’s hair. Abed hums, both as a sign of appreciation and an invitation to continue. Troy locks eyes with him.

“You can write about it, and people will listen to you,” he says, serious but encouraging. “All the work you’ve done to become as successful and as respected as you are now, it’s all left you in a position where you could be the person to change things. You could create the next Professor X, and you could be the one to make sure he’s put onscreen correctly.”

Abed knows his eyes are wide, and he knows Troy can see written in them exactly how he’s feeling, so he simply presses a kiss to Troy’s wrist and smiles.

\---

It’s January when a heavy envelope is delivered to Greendale from Los Angeles. Ben brings it in from the mailbox when he returns from school.

“It’s from Uncle Abed,” he says, handing it to Shirley and pulling off his coat. She ushers him inside and directs him to go warm up in the kitchen before she even glances at the package.

“Overnight shipping,” she reads aloud, looking back towards the kitchen. “Rich people.”

She opens it with equal parts confusion and excitement anyway, withdrawing a crisp new manuscript in a protective plastic bag. There’s a yellow post-it note pressed to the front page.

“What is it, Mom?” Ben calls from the next room.

_Help me tell this right,_ it reads. _Humble me._

Shirley grins.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @nadir-barnes.


End file.
